China to Reward Cities and Regions Making Progress on Air Pollution

BEIJING — Chinese officials announced Thursday that they were offering a total of 10 billion renminbi, or $1.65 billion, this year to cities and regions that make “significant progress” in air pollution control, according to a report by Xinhua, the state-run news agency.

The announcement came from the State Council, China’s cabinet, after it held a meeting on Wednesday to discuss, among other issues, the country’s immense air pollution problem. “Control of PM2.5 and PM10 should be a key task,” the State Council said in a statement, referring to two kinds of particulate matter that are deemed harmful to human health.

The meeting was presided over by Li Keqiang, a member of the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo Standing Committee and China’s prime minister.

The announcement of the financial incentives revealed how difficult it has been for some leaders in Beijing to get many Chinese companies and government officials to comply with environmental regulations. Though central officials have been saying with growing vigor that pollution of all kinds must be curbed, their efforts to force other parts of the bureaucracy and the state-run economy to obey rules have been stymied by the self-interest of some groups.

For example, the state-owned oil companies exert enormous influence on environmental policy, including the setting of fuel standards, and sometimes ignore orders from officials to upgrade their products.

On Thursday, Chinese news organizations reported that the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences had deemed Beijing to be “almost unfavorable for human living.”

The judgment was part of an annual report on the livability of 40 world cities released by the organization, which is tied to the Chinese government.

Beijing ranked second worst in environmental conditions, and Shanghai was the fifth worst. Other indexes used to evaluate the cities included economics, governance and cultural innovation, according to China Daily, an official English-language newspaper.

Over all, Shanghai ranked 21st and Beijing ranked 31st after the six indexes were tallied. Tokyo, London, Paris, New York and Singapore made up the top five.

The three cities with the best environmental rankings were Stockholm, Vienna and Zurich. Moscow had the lowest ranking.

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The news reports did not give details on what specific criteria and methods were used for ranking cities in each index.

Last year, more than 100 cities in China had an average of 29.9 smoggy days, which was a 52-year high, China Daily reported, though it did not explain what constituted a smoggy day.

The Xinhua report on the State Council meeting said that the concentration of PM2.5, a fine particulate matter that lodges deep in the lungs and enters the bloodstream, increased by 56 percent in December compared with the month before, based on monitoring results for 74 Chinese cities. The measured concentration of PM10, a coarser particulate matter, rose by 30 percent that month.

Last month, Chinese news organizations reported that December was the worst month for air pollution in 2013. More than 80 percent of the cities with official air monitoring devices failed to meet the national air quality standard for half of December.

The State Council announcement said that nationwide coal consumption must be controlled, more vehicles should run on high-quality gasoline, energy use in the construction industry should be lowered, and cleaner boilers should be used.

The majority of China’s energy use is based on coal, whose burning, besides being the major cause of air pollution in the country, also contributes to greenhouse gases and global warming. China has surpassed the United States as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the biggest coal consumer in the world. Xinhua reported last month that the country’s coal production increased slightly in 2013 to 3.7 billion tons. Consumption was 3.61 billion tons, or 2.6 percent higher than the previous year.

In July 2013, the Ministry of Environmental Protection ordered more than 15,000 companies regarded as major sources of pollution to report pollutant discharge levels starting this January. The companies account for more than 80 percent of pollution of various kinds in China, according to one official news report. The ministry’s order also required government agencies to supervise the release of pollutants by the companies and their attempts at self-monitoring.

The order was praised by Ma Jun, a well-known environmental advocate who promotes transparency efforts, but it is unclear to what extent the companies and government officials across China are now following the mandate.

Throughout Thursday, a familiar gray haze cloaked Beijing. At the day’s start, the United States Embassy’s air monitor in Beijing rated the air as “hazardous,” a level at which all outdoor activity should be avoided. The concentration of PM2.5 at the time was 268 micrograms per cubic meter, or 11 times the recommended exposure limit set by the World Health Organization. The air stayed at unhealthy levels into the evening.

Bree Feng contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on February 14, 2014, on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: China to Reward Cities and Regions Making Progress on Air Pollution. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe